by Monroe, Evie
“I’ll be there in ten.”
I ran outside, cursing the beaten cowboy boots I’d decided to wear. They were pretty sexy, but too tight. I was starting to get a blister on my heel.
I went into the lot and got into my old blue Honda Civic. I drove down to the apartments on the beach, where Martie lived. She was standing outside in a tiny-as-hell red halter dress that made her look like a prostitute, smoking a cigarette, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze. She ran to me in her five-inch heels and slid into the passenger seat.
“I thought you’d never get here! Lucas was being a real snot tonight,” she said, fluffing her hair. “Do I have apple puffs in my hair? He kept pelting me with them. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
I shook my head. “Chad would flip if he saw you in that outfit,” I said, eyeing her.
“Chad’s five-hundred miles away and probably screwing his secretary,” she said, rolling down the window and flicking the cigarette out. As I sped out of the complex, she stuck her head out into the cool, misty air and shouted, “FREEDOM!”
I laughed at her as I drove. It felt good, at least, for one night. It’d been a long time since Martie and I had been able to get out. She had an overprotective asshole of a boyfriend, Chad, who was always on her case, laying down all these laws for her but acting however he pleased. But Chad had gone away to some convention in San Diego for work, and my mother had told me that I should stop worrying about my dad and go out and have some fun for once.
So here we were.
Ready to dance our asses off.
“Where should we go?” I asked, gnawing on my lip as we drove downtown.
“Somewhere good. Rocky’s?” she suggested.
I shook my head. I knew all the Fury hangouts, and I’d seen some of my dad’s men there. I couldn’t risk having my night out getting back to him. He wanted to keep me as the sweet, innocent girl in pigtails, as unrealistic as that was. I wasn’t allowed to go to bars, or consort with men. And if word got out that any man touched me, my dad would likely tear him limb from limb.
I thought about Joe and winced, feeling a little guilty. He was harmless . . . definitely not my type. But he had touched me, and even that tiny bit of contact was probably enough to piss my daddy off.
No one, I mean no one, messed with my daddy. His temper was off the charts. It was even worse, now that Hell’s Fury’s war with the other motorcycle club in town, the Steel Cobras, seemed to be escalating. These days, my father came back in either one of two moods: Pissed off, or royally pissed off. He’d take out his anger on my mom, unless I stepped in.
My mother hated when I did that. But where my daddy could draw my mom’s blood as easily as he breathed, he always restrained himself when it came to me. At least, he restrained himself more than he did with her.
So, I made sure I was there to stop him. Even if it meant not having any fun, ever.
God, I was so due for some fun. I wanted to let loose, party, be a normal twenty-four-year-old and just go a little crazy.
“What about The Wall?” I asked, turning onto Sunset to drive that way.
Martie gave me a confused look. “Where’s that?”
“It’s that little dive place. South End? On Sunset? Across from the diner and that shitty used car place?”
She wrinkled her nose. “All the way over there?”
Yes, it was all the way on the other side of town. I’d seen bikes out in the parking lot, but it had one definite plus to it: No Fury ever went there. I’d taken note of that during the times I’d passed it on my way home from working at the car rental place. That made it the perfect place to escape to for a little fun. “Come on. It’s always packed. I’ve seen a lot of cute guys outside, too.”
“Hey. Hot guys? I’m in!” she said with a grin, reaching into the top of her skin-tight dress and adjusting her boobs so her cleavage popped.
I had to laugh at that. It would be really nice to have some male attention. Most men wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. They all knew exactly who my daddy was and that made me toxic.
But truth be told, I’d love to meet a real man, one who could stand up to my father and not be sent home, quaking in his boots with his tail between his legs.
Fat chance.
Not that it mattered. Even if I did find a guy that would stand up to my dad, my dad would tear him a new asshole. Didn’t matter how much of a badass the guy was; my father had the Fury. And no one beat Hell’s Fury.
Unfortunately. Which meant my mom and I were stuck in Aveline Bay. Under his thumb. Forever.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I’d just settle for being around a group of people who didn’t know my name, for one night of harmless, innocent, Slade-free fun.
I pulled into the bar’s small lot, and had trouble finding a parking spot. There were a lot of bikes outside, but none had the Fury mark on them. I was sure of that.
My mother and I had talked about sneaking away in the dead of night, getting away from the Fury for good. But we knew that eventually, we’d be found, no matter where we went. My father would never let us go. We were his girls.
I’d have to make the most of this night. My one night of freedom.
When I finally pulled into a parking spot, Martie eyed the place doubtfully. “Sure this place isn’t called Hole in the Wall?”
“Who cares if it is? They have alcohol. And music. And hot men who don’t know I’m Slade’s daughter,” I said, pulling off my bulky sweatshirt to reveal a short denim skirt and a cleavage-baring camisole.
“Yeah,” she said, gnawing on her lip as she studied my skimpy outfit. “About that. What if your dad finds out that you came out here? Looking like that?”
Martie met my dad once. Only once. She told me she’d never felt so close to peeing her pants before. At the time, I just laughed at her, but gradually, I could see what other people saw in my dad. My dad was jacked. Yeah, he was graying and had a little pot belly, sure, and he may have been twice the age of a lot of the guys, but he could hold his own in a fight. He had a way of staring that could make even the bravest men cower. The men in the club didn’t think of him as royalty. He was their God.
I gave her a look, then sliced a finger across my throat. “Let’s hope he doesn’t.”
“Oh, great. Then he’ll probably chop me into little pieces for aiding and abetting.”
“Probably,” I teased. “But can we please just forget about him for one stinkin’ night? If I did everything he told me to, I’d still be a saintly virgin. Hell, I’d probably be in a convent.”
Tilting the rearview mirror to my face, I applied some hot red lip gloss, then looked over at Martie for approval.
“Your daddy would hate it,” she said, her mouth widening to a grin. “It’s perfect. You’re so hot, you’re gonna set this bar on fire!”
“That makes two of us!” I grabbed her hand and shook it, and we squealed in excitement, like two kids.
Then we opened our car doors in unison. Together . . . she in her high heels, me in my cowboy boots . . . we walked toward the entrance.
Well, she walked. I limped. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked as I trailed behind her.
“I have a blister, I think.”
“That better not stop you for dancing, girl.”
“Oh, hell no,” I told her, even though, the way my heel was stinging, I was thinking I might need an amputation by the end of the night. I steeled myself, put on a brave face, and soldiered through.
The place was actually even more of a dive inside than out. I never would’ve thought that possible. But it was kind of like a cave, with just a few amber lights around the bar. The walls were painted blood red. There was an old jukebox spitting out classic rock in the corner. I didn’t know what was on the floor, but the soles of my boots stuck to it. I really hoped it was just booze and not something more sinister like jizz or puke or something.
Didn’t matter, though. I could’ve been walking into hell, a
nd I would’ve been happy. The second we stepped inside, I felt it. A feeling of excitement, of possibility, that I hadn’t felt in forever. I already knew I wanted the night to go on forever. Men stopped mid-swig of their beers, or in the middle of their pool games, to ogle us as we walked across the floor.
I grinned at Martie as we sauntered up to the bar, which was already lined with peanut shells and empty beer bottles. The hot bartender smiled wolfishly at us and cleared some of it out of our way. “What’ll it be, lovely ladies?”
Martie reached down and grabbed an olive out of the condiment tray, popping it into her mouth. She and I looked at each other, then back at him, and said in unison, “Shot of Jack.”
He nodded, impressed. “Coming right up,” he said, setting the shot glasses in front of us and filling them.
We picked up the glasses, clinked them in a silent toast, and downed them in perfect sync.
The liquid burned going down my throat, but I didn’t mind at all. “I’m going to get so fucking drunk and dance like no one’s watching,” I declared, “You’re going to have to drag my ass out of this place. I may even wind up dancing on the bar.”
“What if you have to drag me out?” she shouted over the pulsing beat of the music. “Chad’s not coming back until next week. I’m as free as a bird! I don’t think I’m going to sober up until Sunday night!”
I laughed at her, and we motioned to the bartender for another round. I whirled on the barstool, just taking it all in.
I loved this. Loved this place. Loved being alive.
Then the door opened, and the two hottest men I’d ever seen walked in. One with chin-length darker hair, one with slightly shorter blond hair. Both unshaven, with caramel-tan skin. Jeans, and tight t-shirts, the sleeves of which looked about to pop from their bicep muscles, which were covered in tats. They strode through the bar comfortably, and the crowd parted, like it usually did for my father.
The temperature in the room skyrocketed. Martie saw them, too, because she breathed out, “Oh, my.”
My thoughts, exactly. Holy hell. I’d forgotten such hotness could exist in this world.
And suddenly, I loved everything about this place just a little bit more.
Chapter Three
Drake
We pulled up on our bikes to The Wall, our regular hangout, at a little after ten-thirty, and the place was already packed. Outside, there was a thick fog rolling in off the ocean, and the air was cooler than usual.
It hadn’t worked to cool us down. We were still pissed off about church and our stalemate with the Fury.
Jet maneuvered his bike into a tight spot in the crowded lot, and I followed suit. I lifted off my helmet and affixed it to my handlebars. I motioned to his kutte as I pulled mine off. “Remember what Cullen said? We don’t need to call attention to ourselves, right?”
Lay low. That was the name of the game. Frowning, Jet pulled his kutte off and we left them on his bike. That way, no one could tell we were Cobras. We were just two guys, out to shoot some pool.
Not that we really had to. We knew just about everyone there. We went inside, not looking around, because everything was the same as it’d been the hundreds of other times we’d come here. Same crowd, same décor, same music. We had our regular place at the bar, or regular pool table. We made our way through the crowd, nodding and fist-bumping the people we knew, before stopping at the Cobra’s pool table in the very back.
I motioned to Jake, the bartender, to bring us a pitcher of beer. “Set ‘em up,” I said to Jet as I grabbed a cue off the wall.
Jet racked up the balls and broke, as Vera dropped off our pitcher of beer. I poured it and took a drink, as Jet scratched. “Shit,” he muttered.
That wasn’t like him. He was wound up, like we all were. Looked like he was going to be needing that pussy sooner than later.
He dropped the cue and raked his hands through his hair. “It’s bullshit, that’s what it is,” he muttered, leaning against the table. “I don’t like to speak ill of Cullen because he’s a good president and all the men like him. But I really wish to hell he’d grow a pair and let us take care of the Fury once and for all.”
I nodded as I set up my shot. “Preaching to the choir, man,” I said to him as I made my first shot. I straightened and lined up the next one. “I get that we need to think, first. But it really does suck, waiting for the next shootout. Then what do we do when it happens? Nothing. If we could just find their clubhouse, our problems would be solved.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
“You know what it is, more than ever, now. Cullen. He’s got Grace to worry about. His kid.”
Jet nodded in agreement and took a gulp of his beer. “Yeah. I guess.”
Cullen had always been judicious about wanting to get us involved in Fury business. But since he’d found out he had a kid and gotten engaged to his girl, he’d gone beyond that. It seemed like he was dragging his feet even more. I couldn’t blame him, since he had more than just the Cobras to look out for, now, but we’d been careful enough.
“Maybe he should step down if he can’t handle the heat,” Jet suggested.
“And let who take over?” I joked. “You? You’d get us all killed.”
He laughed. We all knew that Jet, the youngest of all of us, was in no place to be president. Him, included. “Probably.” He pumped his fist. “But we’d all go out in a blaze of glory.”
I clapped him on the back. “Thanks. But I think I’ll just stay alive.”
This is the way things usually went for us. We’d play a little pool, toss back more than a couple of beers until we were nice and buzzed. Once the beer started settling in and we got tired of shooting pool, we’d look for the girls. The Wall was usually filled with the same old regulars, so I had some pretty reliable pussy to take home. No attachments, no expectations, no games. Just good, satisfying fucking, the perfect way to end a Saturday night.
But Jet didn’t like reliability. He wanted new. He was our pretty-boy, so the women went insane for him. This wasn’t usually the place for new, but if he found it, he zeroed in on it. I usually played wingman and watched him try his luck.
He really didn’t need luck. He was Jet. Legendary with women.
I landed my last shot and Jet racked them up again. As he did, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked around at the prospects. There was a group of women I’d never seen before in the far corner of the bar, dancing together and giggling as if the world revolved around them. They were pretty hot; looked like college students. I motioned to Jet. “Them?”
He considered them for about ten seconds, then shook his head. “Co-eds are too easy. I could probably have them all together.”
Knowing him, that wasn’t an exaggeration. Once, we’d gone to Cullen’s house to find him in the hot tub with three naked women, all eager to please him. Women fell at his feet and killed for the chance at one night with him. He didn’t usually do repeat engagements.
Jet wanted a challenge. He wanted a woman who’d put up a fight, give him something to work for. I didn’t care about that. To me, it didn’t make sense, since I wasn’t looking for a relationship. Neither was he, but he enjoyed the game. Had this big thing about spreading himself around to as many women as possible.
On the contrary, I just wanted release, as easy as I could get it. Avery was my go-to. She was there, at the end of the bar. She was pretty enough, and nice enough, and forgettable enough. She waved at me. I winked at her. She mouthed something to me that sounded like, Whenever you’re ready.
Then I scanned the other side of the bar, and I saw a redheaded dream, standing alone.
And everything I’d been thinking just flew right out the window.
A mane of deep red hair. Pale skin. Barely-there denim skirt showing off two gorgeous S curves. Full tits poking out of a tiny tank top. Bare belly, with a little diamond piercing in her navel. She was leaning against the bar, with legs that went on for miles, ending in two beat-up cowboy
boots. She looked bored, bordering on annoyed, like she was better than everyone else in the place.
My cock twitched like never before, a fucking earthquake in my pants. I almost had to rub my eyes to convince myself she was real and not some oasis. Goddamn, she was fine.
For a moment, I let my thoughts wander to putting her on the back of my bike and taking her home. To bending her over and slowly entering her, inch by inch . . .
But then it hit me. If I knew Jet . . .
“That one,” he said to me, giving me a nudge as he eyed the redhead from top to bottom, like a dinner he couldn’t wait to devour. “Holy fuck. Yes. Have you ever seen a body like that?”
I shook my head.
Hell no, I hadn’t.
I sucked in a breath, let it out. “You going for her?”
He finished his beer and set it down on the edge of the pool table. “Is water wet?”
It shouldn’t have disappointed me.
I’d probably end up fucking Avery tonight, perfectly acceptable, warm, hot Avery, who’d give me the good, reliable release I was looking for.
But I was damned sure I’d be thinking of the redhead, even though she’d be under my best friend.
Jetson led a fucking charmed life. He was one lucky, lucky bastard.
Chapter Four
Caitlyn
It took about ten minutes and three shots of Jack for Martie to fall completely under the spell of some random loser with a mullet who looked about my father’s age.
I nudged her from her lip lock. “Come up for air, every once in a while. It’s good for you.”
That was Martie. I loved her to death, but she wasn’t exactly discriminating. And when she fell, she fell fast and hard.
Chad had been like that. She’d been on track to get her RN degree before she met him at a college party. A day later, she’d moved in with him. A month later, she dropped out of school, and nine months after that, had a son with him, Lucas. Now she was busy pretending to be a happy homemaker for him, trying to make it work, when it was obvious from how much she complained that she hated that life and wished she could escape.